According to a currently besieged idiot diarist on DK (I smell hardcore libertarian), Obama is a stealth socialist candidate, a Manchurian a la Sweden, who once in office will blanket us with a socialist agenda, the likes of which…

Well, just lol. I wish.

Didnt someone else posit that he is a Trojan Horse, stuffed with Jimmy Carter clones (aka: honest broker on I/P) who shall burst out, once the horsey is in the gate, and deliver devastating rounds of evenhanded karate chops, whipping a just resolution into being.

Again, just lol.

Then there is Keith Olbermann, who put forth some theory of the Dont Worry, Be Happy sort, on Obama’s FISA flip. It goes something like, once he gets in (They all start like that… Once upon an Obama inauguration…) he’ll not rest until the evildoers (the spys who didnt love us) are criminally prosecuted, and all shall be well.

For the 3rd time… LOL!

And STOP IT!

One thing that is evident about this guy – there is always the next rung on the ladder in his sights (I dont know what’s next … King of the Universe?) And he is too sharp an operator to unleash such fantastical changes, spurn the establishment that brung him.

So get used to it, magical thinkers, whether it’s your nightmare or your wet dream: The “Change” Menu will NOT include the following:

Actually Daschle makes some sort of sense i guess, kind of like a reliable side dish on the plate. He adds age and experience, doesn’t rock the boat (for the average Dem anyway) and they’ll take very pretty pictures together. Obamarama didn’t win the SD primary though even with Daschle’s campaigning for him, not a plus.

It seems like Daschle’s staff makes up alot of Obama’s inner circle so maybe it’s the Dem version of the Cheney VP hunt.

For every dollar of equity capital, a well-financed regional bank holds perhaps $10 in loans or securities. Wall Street’s biggest broker-dealers could hardly bear to look themselves in the mirror if they didn’t extend themselves three times further. At the end of 2007, Goldman Sachs had $26 of assets for every dollar of equity. Merrill Lynch had $32, Bear Stearns $34, Morgan Stanley $33 and Lehman Brothers $31. On average, then, about $3 in equity capital per $100 of assets. “Leverage,” as the laying-on of debt is known in the trade, is the Hamburger Helper of finance. It makes a little capital go a long way, often much farther than it safely should. Managing balance sheets as highly leveraged as Wall Street’s requires a keen eye and superb judgment. The rub is that human beings err.

The federal indictment of the GOP’s longest-serving U.S. senator – on seven felony counts, stemming from his seven-year sweetheart association with an oil-services company – is not merely a severe embarrassment to the minority party on Capitol Hill, a party that had been ousted from power in ’06 partly because certain ethics-challenged members had already stained the Republican brand. The bottom line is that Ted Stevens’ legal predicament is a gift to the Democrats, who dream of gaining nine Senate seats on election day, thus dominating the chamber next January with a filibuster-proof tally of 60.

filibuster proof tally of 60 my ass. the only way the donks will get a fillibuster proof tally is to seat 75. 60 demcratiks voting on any given prog issue is 44 voting for and the other 16 against. 60+16=76. thats closer to the magic “more ‘n bettah” number for progs. even their damned obama votes FISA alongside the unified republicans!

The media constantly provides cover to the Democrats, as though they are rendered [mysteriously] powerless by some sudden new game of “60”. I caught Sam Donaldson on some KGO radio news update thsi morning, carefully delivering Democratic cover slobber.

What a weak party. They can only ”win” when the R are in utter disarray.

I am very intent that the Dems should have good large SAFE majorities and should win the WH.

Today, McCaskill’s pitch to this sea of white faces was cultural. “I know this man,” she said of Obama. “He is humble. He is devoutly Christian. He loves his family more than anything else in the world. He reveres our men and women in uniform and he is as red white and blue as you can possible get.”

Thanks for posting that link from WSJ I sent you. Except for the obligatory libertarian “it’s all the lefties fault” section in the middle, it was pretty good (the progressives referenced in the article would NEVER have stood for the destruction of regulation that the Donks wrought … the whole system they set up depended upon robust regulation). Anyway, since I’m really nerding out on what is wrong w/ the business climate in this country, more from Crooked Timber:

The other point raised by Daniel is that the concept of maximizing profits is too ill-defined to act as a real constraint on managers. Hence, if fiduciary obligation is to made an implementable policy, it must be tied to something more concrete.

There is one coherent version of fiduciary obligation that satisfies the incentive compatibility requirement. This is the view that managers are obligated to seek the maximum possible increase in the stock price (after taking account of dividend payments), and that they should be motivated to do so by being paid largely or wholly in stocks or options. This is consistent with fiduciary obligation if the shareholders are taken to be the specific group who hold shares when the manager is appointed, and whose interests are therefore aligned with the manager’s. Finally, stockholders can use lawsuits to protect themselves against opportunistic manipulation of stock prices.

This approach was highly popular during the 1990s, but the dotcom boom in particular showed its weaknesses. On the one hand, it turned out that stock price manipulation was easy to do and hard to prove, while the remedy of stockholder lawsuits came to be seen as a cure worse than the disease. On the other hand, as the principal-agent literature predicts, risk-averse managers don’t want their entire return tied to the vagaries of a stock price. So, they’ve not only sought to write contracts that guarantee them a large risk-free income, but they rewritten those contracts ex post when the terms called for them to share the losses of stockholders.

The whole “wisdom of the markets” and glory that is greed thing is just really such bullshit. Nearly the entire sweep of human creative history wouldn’t have happened if creativity was only motivated by greed and the markets. No penicillin, no Laws of Thermodynamics, no plastics, no Sistine Chapel or Blue Period or punk music. No love, romantic poetry, folk music … no co-op stores or barn raisings or hootenannies or juke joints. No jazz, no blues, no rock and roll … no hip hop or graffiti.

No community.

Basically, none of the things that make life just a little more grand.

Obama supporters and blissed-out Barry-heads everywhere: Are you ready for some righteous war? Are you prepared to step up and get fucking medieval in Afghanistan, and perhaps in Pakistan as well? You’d better be, for the man whose feet you’re currently kissing has big plans to expand the War On Terror, and now is not the time for faint-hearted second-thoughts. Polish those boots, clean your weapons, and get in formation. The moment of truth is arriving soon.

Ah, who am I kidding? Of course American liberals will fall in line. They’ve been itching to show that they, too, can bellow for large body counts, cheer cluster bombs and patriot-bait those who dare question Dear Leader. Problem is, Bush and Cheney have been running the killing machine, and this has put a damper on the traditional liberal love of imperial war. But that era is ending, and unless Obama finds some way to blow this election (or if enough frightened whites in key states decide that having a president of color is a little too much for their racist psyches to absorb), we’re going to see a renewed period of sustained bloodshed, with lots of dead and mangled Afghans in the foreground.

snip

Only under Obama, black hoods, beatings, and waterboarding will be legalized, or at least granted an exemption until a bi-partisan presidential panel can decide the “proper” lengths to which US forces can extract information. Liberals don’t mind stomping or driving prisoners insane, just so long as it falls within the law. That’s what separates them from rightwing savages.

Speaking of reactionaries, what will be their take when Obama goes LBJ on Afghanistan? Will they suddenly question the mission, as so many did when Clinton bombed Serbia? Or will they learn to appreciate a Democrat who slaughters the “right kind” of Muslims? Should make for some interesting scenes.

This is why I hope Obama gets elected. Let’s throw some gasping, choking, blasted Afghan civilians at American liberals’ feet and gauge their reactions. Based on historical evidence, the results shouldn’t be too surprising. Plus, it will guarantee a sequel to “Savage Mules.” Win/win all around, save for the Afghan people, who are in for some brutal times ahead. But then, they’re used to that, and they’re probably not even registered Democrats. So who cares what they think?

Sorry Madman, got them out of moderation. usually I get an email to check the Moderation File when a comment falls there.. but not this time

Well we are awash in various forms of prohibition-type laws in CA… some North some South, some state wide (Arnold banned transfats, state wide, for restaurants, but you can still choke on a Twinkie). I am convinced it is done to divert attention from the utter collpase of much of financial services… the utter vacuity of the political scene (nearly complete on that old congeal game)… and so on.

REP. DENNIS KUCINICH: Well, now that I’ve heard that the Speaker is looking for evidence that crimes may have been committed, I certainly want to direct her attention to the thirty-five articles of impeachment that I presented, which assert quite directly that crimes have been committed, including taking this nation into a war, an illegal war, based on lies; including the deaths of over a million innocent Iraqis, which constitute a war crime; including wiretapping, rendition, torture, illegal detention. There are many examples of laws that have been broken.

And the reason why the Judiciary Committee should hold a hearing on the impeachment itself is because there needs to be a public airing of this. So, I have a great deal of respect for Speaker Pelosi, and I think that since she made that statement on The View, there’s an opportunity now for us to come forward and to lay all the facts out so that she can reconsider her decision not to permit the Judiciary Committee to proceed with a full impeachment hearing.

Let’s hope and sea, biscuit. But good on you for laying down the record.

No the OK came thru before the oil spill… Ocean Beach is under the NPS… I can’t find a picture easily, but they OK’d fire pits along a certain stretch of OB (which is huge) and then artists designed fire pits, apparently an idea borrowed from somewhere in SoCal where it has worked.

Bon fires, fire pits are just so primal, that to ban them, is right up there with banning nude beaches. Tho even if they do, some like San Gregorio will be hard to police. You practically have to scale the cliff to get to it, there is a stairway cut into the wall and rope bannister (at least when I went) so the beach milieu there is pretty much self selected by the barrier of the cliff. People will just keep going there and taking their cloths off (or not, it is very loose, people do what suits them).

It’s not out of the question that some judge or other (outside the US of course) might on one fine day. issue a warrant for the arrest of high-ranking Bush administration officials- a la Pinochet or other Latin American scoundrels. Make no mistake, in such an event, Obama will reject vigorously such a warrant with the full power of the US government.

Someone please remind me again, what were the reasons we should unite behind this guy? I may have known, once, but now I have a really hard time remembering any.

hmm Just heard about this lead editorial in the SJ Mercury News… a host on KGO http://www.KGOam810.com radio is spending the hour on it. Pity, he and the editorial all trust the DEMOCRATS to teh be dam against this. At least the vague concept that the righties are going after it ALL, is getting around…

Editorial: Defeat Bush’s last stand against abortion

Mercury News Editorial
Article Launched: 07/30/2008 01:34:13 AM PDT

President Bush has spent his eight years in office fighting a social war against American women’s right to choose. Now he is orchestrating one last campaign to try to curb abortion. This is one surge that must be defeated.

The Bush administration knows it can’t win this fight in Congress. So its latest effort is a draft proposal by the Department of Health and Human Services that purports to clarify workers’ rights to refuse to provide abortions.

The new rules define abortion as “any of the various procedures – including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action – that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

It doesn’t take a medical expert to know that definition includes birth control pills, IUDs and “Plan B” emergency contraception. Sen. Hillary Clinton said that if birth control is defined as abortion, it would permit individuals and health-care corporations to refuse to provide family planning.

The new regulations could also invalidate California’s and a dozen other states’ laws that ensure women’s access to safe, affordable contraceptives.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have joined in the fight to get Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt to reject the draft proposal. They should make clear to President Bush
that his final effort to block women’s right to choose is destined to fail.

i’m OK with banning the transfats, if just because they’re poisons posing as food substitutes for the reason of making processed foods store longer.

it’s a pointless ban done at the state level, though, as the packaged stuff crossing state lines far outstrips the in-state prepared food (and makes up a larger % of poor people’s food, thus compounding the already huge health gap WRT obesity and diabetes that bad cheap food creates). honestly, i’d be in favor of a pretty stringent national food purity law that gets rid of most of that chemical crap that adulterates nearly everything people can buy to eat.

no argument from me, however, that without free quality national health care, the rest of it is rather trivial. but i’ll still cheer the demise of a wretched agribiz food substitute, as tiny as that ripple may be. i was happy with the ban of the bovine growth hormone too.

when they go for corn syrup (Archer Daniels Midland, for one) and remove frantic advertising from the cover of what passes for breakfast cereal in this country (adverts aimed at children), I might listen, slightly, on transfats.

I think it is the gyrations of one lobby over the other. And then we could talk about the Nazi in the State house. Talk about impurity.

I amjust fuckingsick to death of the banning prohibition mentality. Because it is a GAME. had it.

I gather Chung and Arnold move to a possible stand off tomorrow. Just heard him and some weak thing named Zamora from SEIU on KGO for an hour.

amazingly enough i did find a reference on one of the obama blogs to anthony lake making the same point. i must have missed that. its so three stooges-funny i know i would have remembered.

* Anthony Lake: The grandson of a Church of England clergyman who came the United States from Oxford to teach New Testament Studies at Harvard, Tony Lake converted to Judaism in 2005. He has long been a foreign policy advisor to Democrats. When questioned by Moment Magazine about his support for Barack Obama vis-a-vis Israel, Lake responded: “The question is: Which America is the strongest friend of Israel? Which America will be the strongest adversary to those who would do us harm? And clearly, the answer is an America that is unified rather than torn apart by the politics of the past 20 years. And it is in Obama’s DNA to be a unifier while having clear views.”

Or Joe Biden (who is looking and sounding more and more like an Alvin The Chipmunk impersonator).

I lived in Delaware for 6 years. Someone once said that William McKinley had the backbone of an eclair. I’d say that about Biden, except it would be unfair to the pastry. What I remember most about Biden is that he’d shoot his mouth off in impolitic fashion, then issue a grovelling apology 24-36 hours later, time after time.

Kaine actually makes the most sense (I am speaking purely in terms of political appeal here). He’s dull as dishwater, but in a way that people find reassuring. Sometimes people respond to someone like that, on the grounds that he’s dependable and diligent. He also did an excellent job of handling the abortion and gun issues when he was elected governor, and his meetings with regular Joe types did not come off as forced, he seemed quite comfortable with them and they with him. Whether this translates to the national stage is another question altogether.

Saw a snatch of the latest McCain ad comparing Obama to Britney and Paris Hilton. I suppose the previous ones have flopped (that Obama Is The Reason Gas Costs So Much! spot had a gas pump straight out of the 1950s), now they really seem to be hitting bottom (they’ll doubtless prove themselves capable of sinking even further, of course). Today made it the top story, and promised appearances by honchos from both the McCain and Obama camps to discuss it. I wasn’t able to stick around for that segment, if I were the Obama rep, I’d say I thought the piece was very amusing as a bit of surrealism, and note that McCain has nothing to say w/r/t why he’d be a good president, so he’s reduced to this kind of adolescent slander. Even McCain’s former strategist John Weaver thinks this latest spot is lousy.

Thank god at least some segments of the MSM are covering the stuff that’s really important:

“You know, I don’t pay attention to John McCain’s ads, although I do notice he doesn’t seem to have anything to say very positive about himself. He seems to only be talking about me. You need to ask John McCain what he’s for and not just what he’s against,” he said.

Neither campaign seems interested in discussing anything worthy of attention, of course. Obama’s idea about withdrawing combat troops from Iraq seems intended merely to have forces available to send to Afghanistan, and his announced intention to cross the border into Pakistan is potentially at least as disastrous as Bush’s invasion of Iraq. In fact, the one sensible thing I’ve heard from either candidate recently was McCain’s comment that Obama’s sabre rattling about Pakistan was foolish.

Jake Tapper has several posts on the rat a tat tat between Ob and McC over teh The Ad. LOL INcluding a quote from Ob in 2004 in which he says he is overexposed, more than Paris. I know it kills the supporters and lovers and baskers in his glow, but i find him juvenile. Which I am sure is racist.

“combat” troops is the dodge. BAR reported as of a year and half ago, that troops were being speedily reclassifed. Some combat troops are now officially “trainers”. And there is no reason not to assume that for hire, mercs and paramilitaries will nto swell. Blackwater protected him in the war theatre and he reported said they had gotten a raw deal or unfair deal or whatever appeaser shit he shoveled out.

A blip of sanity at DK, perhaps. The diarist points out (correctly, I think) that McCain has finally found an effective negative attack on Obama – the “celebrity” rap. Possibly the first thing McCain has done “right” in his campaign, possibly this is related to his campaign shakeup of a few weeks ago?

And possibly it could be an effective attack because there’s a grain of truth to it, and not much to counterbalance it (ie, Obama’s thin Senatorial record). But McCain would have to push it long and hard to the fence-sitters – it takes more than one commercial to turn something into a meme.

They are using his [Obama’s] popularity against him for two reasons: It is his strength. And it riles their base.

I know I shouldn’t be surprised at the political naivete on display there, but the “popularity” is never a source of strength, obviously, and it’s extraordinarily dumb and dangerous to think so. And, um, if McCain riles his base, that’s not really a good thing for Obama, is it?

I commented on DK about this but will throw it out here. Since neither candidate has a plan, what they are selling is mood. My feeling is that a worsening economy helps McCain and hurts Obama, since in times of belt-tightening and economic pain, and in the absence of real hope (and there is none, even though it has been commodified up the wazoo), people will feel negative about shiny and ostentatious things and people. If McCain is somehow successful in comparing Obama to Britney Spears, that would be powerful: because pretty much everybody now hates Britney Spears and everything she stands for. (Given the incompetence of the McCain campaign up to now, that’s still a pretty big “if”)

I feel that economic events are moving and national mood is changing faster than the Obama campaign really knows how to respond to. They are still selling JFK (even as recently as last week) in an era that bears no economic resemblance whatsoever to the early Sixties. It seems the McCain campaign has got an inkling of this now. And what’s coming up hard and fast? The Dem convention with its still-enigmatic central figure (Obama) and a big huge outdoor Nuremburg rally planned… right after the Olympics which will probably be Nuremburg 24/7 for two weeks and which the American public may become thoroughly sick of.

I wonder what sorts of ad planning meetings are going on about that rally, in the McCain campaign right now. (Heck, if I was tasked with continuing the meme, I’d just try to link Obama with Chinese excess and decadence…)

If McCain is calling the shots, the ads will probably get worse and worse. Eventually, I suppose he’ll start having tantrums in public, saying really scurrilous things, etc., otherwise getting in touch with his inner Nixon.

So far, my favorite ad is the Summer Of Love one, contrasting the hedonistic hippies with brave, noble McCain in his POW cell. It should be painfully obvious by this time that however much Americans might give lip service to honoring military service, they really don’t care beyond putting a yellow ribbon magnet on their car.

Kennedy was elected in 1960, when the country was just starting to come out of a mild recession. Nixon and his allies among Ike’s economic advisers (Arthur Burns chief among them) tried to get the President to do a few things to offset this, but he didn’t, and Nixon believed the economic downturn was a major reason for his defeat. That his own malignant self might have had something to do with it does not seem to have occurred to him.

As to whether in bad economic times people won’t respond positively to “shiny and ostentatious things and people,” that election and those of 1980 and 1992 shows just how wrong that notion is.

I think what’s going to doom McCain is that he looks and sounds like a tired, confused old man, and the rigors of full time campaigning (which will start in a few weeks) are only going to exacerbate this problem.

I will reduce abortion in Virginia by enforcing current Virginia restrictions, passing an enforceable ban on partial-birth abortion, ensuring women’s access to health care (including legal contraception), and promoting abstinence-focused education and adoption. We should reduce abortion in this manner, rather than by criminalizing women and doctors.

I have a faith-based opposition to abortion. As governor, I will work in good faith to reduce abortions by:

1. Enforcing the current Virginia restrictions on abortion and passing an enforceable ban on partial birth abortion that protects the life and health of the mother;
2. Fighting teen pregnancy through abstinence-focused education;
3. Ensuring women’s access to health care (including legal contraception) and economic opportunity; and
4. Promoting adoption as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies.

Too often politicians are interested in scoring political points, rather than in reducing the number of abortions. Many of the legislative proposals introduced in the General Assembly, like the ones to require unnecessary building standards for doctor’s offices that perform abortions, are just political grandstanding. They encourage division and lawsuits rather than contributing to the goal of reducing abortions.

has kaine done something positive for women since he published these views that i’m unaware of? could you point me to where i might read about what would have to be his 180? you see i have a very low opinion of mr kaine based on statements such as these, and others. if hes now “excellent” i must need to update.

BamaRama is trying to sell fiction. Mood is as a good a name for it as any.

Over and over the Democrats prattle that what McC says is ‘not in tune with Americans’. BULLSHIT. They are in dreamland.

I listened to Bill Press for 40 minutes this am, bitch and moan about the ad, how racist how this how that. Few callers agreed, some did… but when he was out of steam on the damned ad, what did he have to push??

Oh just holding Rove in contempt. Best delivered with a weak lisp imo. Meaningless.

58

I wish that so much of your second graf did nto fit ObBaby as well. I have pawed thru an appalling amount of his speeches and commentaries and interviews, sit downs with ed boards… and full text of debates, over the past 4 years. A gagworthy endeavor frankly.

I am SICK TO DEATH of how he portrays the 60s and 70s. Ignorant asshole. Vision DNA crap crap crap… and only he can heal us. WTF?

All I can say is FUCK HIM. It really is a horrible horizon.

i am sorry, I saw (and see) McC Hillary and Ob as equals. The only difference is years and access to corruption. The Obs wanna catch up.

OTOH, you’re certainly right that there selling nothing but mood, atmospthere, attitude, whatever you want to call it. They’ll continue to do so, and at some point in November, some MSM maven who’s been one of the worst enablers of this process will indignantly proclaim that nothing of substance was discussed in the campaign. At least back in 1960 the phony issues (i.e., the “Missile Gap” and the squabbles over who would be more forthright in defending Quemoy and Matsu) had something to do with the real world. No longer.

kaine did an awful thing last night on Rose. he is one of thse people who set their eyes to slits. Very disconcerting in a pol. He also over and over when making declarative statements, would look down and off to the right, his right.

But when he talked about abortion (all his old tropes, he’s not for criminalising women, WHOOPEEE) and when eh talked about religion (Honduras Honduras Honduras and “my wife stengthened my religion” WTF? mroe sex is sacred shit?) he OPENED HIS EYES and looked directly at the camera (he was on remote, not at the table).

One more fucking Catholic.

While the bitch and moan goes on about the ad, Obs religious outreach met yesterday I think with Cahtolics in congress… (Brody at CNS covered it) abortion abortion abortion.

Obama’s primary season campaign was notable for its vapidity. If you’ve ever seen the Doris Day/Rock Hudson vehicle “Lover Come Back,” Obama’s schtick reminded me of that movie’s ad campaign “VIP IS COMING!!!” for a product that didn’t exist. Nothing I’ve seen since has changed my mind. If you dig through the layers of camouflage he and Hillary covered themselves with, you get a message of “I’ll do imperialism more efficiently and ruthlessly than Bush did!” Whether this is simply rhetoric intended to get elected or what he really hopes to do we won’t know unless he’s in the WH next year.

My wife informs me that it was announced on Regis and Kelly that Princess Chunk is in fact a prince. If only I hadn’t been banned at Kosolini’s site, I could go over there and do a diary that would no doubt be at the top of the Recommended List in no time.

Yes, I do love that one, along with “Change You Can Believe In!” Perfectly meaningless. Henry Wallace, for whom I have a great deal of respect and admiration for (among other things) trying to point out that we were trying to win the Cold War by allying ourselves with a bunch of Greek/Italian/Japanese gangsters and suggesting this was liable to create a lot of problems for us down the road, authored a really great line: “New horizons beckon with meaningful opportunities.” You could do a college senior thesis analyzing that empty platitude, which manages to be a non sequitar, oxymoron, and a mixed metaphor all at once.

I think he’s being given a strict diet at this point. From the shots I’ve seen of him, he doesn’t look that fat, he must be a really huge feline to begin with. The first picture I saw of him reminded me of one of my cats, a very large white female who probably weights 20-23 pounds.

I can’t find anything about Bush signing the EO either. I suppose it will make it’s way into the major websites tomorrow.

Just happened on this story about financial troubles at Tony Soprano’s favorite newspaper, the Newark Star-Ledger, flagship of the not exactly distinguished Newhouse chain. Of course it only got to be the flagship because their original flagship, The Long Island Press (based in Jamaica, Queens) went under about 30 years ago. The Newhouse papers are/were broadsheets that behave like tabloids, i.e., they liked to go in for screaming headlines, but the Newhouse family was so cheap, they often had trouble finding items worthy of this kind of sensational treatment. I believe it was the S-L that once ran an across the top of the front page screaming banner that read “Wood Ibis Faces Extinction.” So now, apparently, does the S-L.

The revised version of Executive Order 12333 ratifies the major reshuffling of intelligence carried out by Congress in 2004, when an overhaul through new legislation created the post of director of national intelligence atop all the agencies, diminishing the role of the Central Intelligence Agency director. The post of national intelligence director is now held by Mike McConnell, whose staff worked for months on the revision, which the president signed on Wednesday.

Members of the congressional intelligence oversight committees, who were briefed on the executive order Thursday, grumbled that they had not been consulted adequately about the revision. But they appeared to have no serious objections to the contents of the revised order.

Patrick said the repeal shows that “equal means equal” in Massachusetts, where a 2003 ruling by the state’s highest court made gay marriage legal a year later.

“In five years now … the sky has not fallen, the earth has not opened to swallow us all up, and more to the point, thousands and thousands of good people — contributing members of our society — are able to make free decisions about their personal future, and we ought to seek to affirm that every chance we can,” Patrick said.

So.

Imprisoned journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal has been taken to the Intensive Care Unit of Schuylkill Medical Center in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, after he was removed from prison for a medical emergency without any notification to his family, friends or lawyers. Prison officials told his supporters he is in diabetic shock. We get an update f […]

Indiana is facing boycotts and fierce criticism following Gov. Mike Pence's new measure that could sanction discrimination by allowing business owners to refuse service to LGBT customers in the name of "religious freedom." Connecticut is the first state to officially boycott Indiana over the move, now San Francisco and Seattle have also impose […]

We look at the case of Frederic "Rick" Bourke, who is considered a whistleblower after he was imprisoned for exposing corruption and bribery in the oil-rich region of the Caspian Sea. Bourke is known for founding the luxury handbag company Dooney & Bourke and is a philanthropist who has invested his wealth into ventures seeking novel cures for […]

George Mitchell, the former senator and U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace under President Obama, joins us to discuss the escalating U.S.-Israel standoff over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's campaign against an Iran nuclear deal and open rejection of the two-state solution. Last week, it emerged Israeli intelligence spied on the Iran talks and […]

About 40 mothers being held at an immigration detention camp in Karnes, Texas, have launched a hunger strike to protest the detainment of their children as the families await immigration…Click to Continue »

On Reality Asserts Itself, Craig and Cindy Corrie tell Paul Jay, "people find hope in the work that we're doing and in the fact that Rachel was there that day, and stood against what was happening to all of those families in the Gaza Strip"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday told Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi that he would lift a hold on U.S. military aid to Cairo, but also said the United States would stop allowing Egypt to buy equipment on credit starting in fiscal year 2018.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republicans will push ahead with legislation reflecting their deep mistrust of a nuclear deal with Iran whatever the outcome of talks between Tehran and major powers in Switzerland, setting up further confrontation with President Barack Obama.

(Reuters) - Indiana's Republican Governor Mike Pence, responding to national outrage over the state's new Religious Freedom Restoration Act, said on Tuesday he will "fix" it to make clear businesses cannot use it to deny services to same-sex couples.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House committee is seeking a private interview with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over her use of private email and a personal computer server while at the State Department, the panel said in a letter released on Tuesday.

Media

from Howl

I'm with you in Rockland
where we wake up electrified out of the coma
by our own souls' airplanes roaring over the
roof they've come to drop angelic bombs the
hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse
O skinny legions run outside O starry
spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is
here O victory forget your underwear we're free
I'm with you in Rockland
in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-
journey on the highway across America in tears
to the door of my cottage in the Western night

October 7 1955

"a remarkable collection of angelson one stage reading their poetry"
"I think Allen Ginsberg standing up there reading - putting himself on the line - was one of the two bravest things I've ever seen. Remember, it was '55. People had crew cuts, and they looked at you like you were misplaced cannon fodder. The country was being run by Luce publications. It was a dangerous, cold, ugly time, and it was scary. . .
In all our memories no one had been so outspoken in poetry before. We had gone beyond a point of no return. None of us wanted to go back to the grey, chill, militaristic silence, to the intellectual void - to the land without poetry - to the spiritual drabness. We wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we wanted vision."
-Michael McClure

Democrats…

Same as goddam fucking forever.
Over and over, in election year after election year, GE and MidTerms both… the Dems start to purr and preen, they stretch luxuriously - at just being TOLD they are going to win [...]
It never fails.
... in February of 2002, looking over the already joyless congressional stragglers willing to be drafted for duty… they barely dreamed, yet, it was even possible (Howard, a different person then, had not arrived to say it could be done)… but one thing was clear, we could not rely on the party to swing it. Could not. You could smell it, they would screw the deal. And I am not talking about Howard and primary issues here. By the end, that was a passing political story. Chuck it on the heap.
[...]
Upshot? The Republicans make it thru. They hold on.